No “Mass confusion” here

Despite the misleading headline — “Debut of new translation causes Mass confusion” — the Cincinnati Enquirer‘s account of the translation’s debut this past weekend shows local Catholics taking it in stride. The only real crank is a lady from Wisconsin who appears at the end. Like Fr. Kolde of St. John Neumann, our celebrant yesterday carefully articulated the prayers and lingered on words that have changed. He also repeated the parts of the people to help us along. The congregation would have benefited from more of those red booklets produced by the archdiocese; we brought along slick pew cards from Magnificat, and on at least one occasion I caught a neighbor peering over my shoulder. Yes, we all stumbled a time or two with the new prayers, but from what I could see most people shrugged and smiled, knowing it’ll get easier with practice.

PLEASANT RUN – The 11 o’clock Mass at St. John Neumann Catholic Church went a little slower Sunday morning than in weeks – and years – past.

English-speaking Roman Catholics at the suburban Cincinnati church and elsewhere who have regularly attended Mass for years found themselves in an unfamiliar position, needing printed cards or sheets of paper to follow along with a ritual many have known since childhood. The changes are happening worldwide and are driven by a new English translation of the original Latin Mass.

Though parishes have prepared since September for the new translations, reaction to the official changes on Sunday, the first week of Advent, showed that Catholics will need some more time to adjust.

The Rev. Steve Kolde, pastor of John Neumann, articulated each word carefully and gave congregants extra time to find the correct pages in hymnals and missals before the response. …

Also, this morning’s print edition has a letter praising the “New Catholic Mass.”

[…] which the implementation of the new translation has been portrayed by the media. (See related post here.) Since the compilation doesn’t appear to be online, what appears below is a scanned copy. […]